17 Days on Water and 'Luck': Bangladeshi Seamstress Rescued From Rubble

Workers stand outside an 11-story building that houses the Tung Hai Sweater Ltd. factory and apartments after a fire in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Thursday, May 9, 2013. The fire broke out in the building Wednesday night, not long after the up to 300 workers of the factory went home for the day, killing at least eight people officials said Thursday. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

A rescue worker walks with a stretcher in the rain to retrieve a body from the rubble of a garments factory that collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Tuesday May 7, 2013. Hundreds of survivors of last month's collapse of a building housing garment factories in Bangladesh protested for compensation Tuesday, as the death toll from the country's worst-ever industrial disaster passed 700. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

A woman cries after she identified her relative's body recovered from the rubble of the garment factory building which collapsed last week, Friday, May 3, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building�s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Workers toil in the collapsed garment factory building on Tuesday 30, April, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Emergency workers hauling large concrete slabs from a collapsed 8-story building said Tuesday they expect to find many dead bodies when they reach the ground floor, indicating the death toll will be far more than the official 386. One estimate said it could be as high as 1,400. The illegally constructed, 8-story Rana Plaza collapsed on the morning of April 24, bringing down the five garment factories inside.(AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

Bangladeshi rescue workers carry a garment worker who was pulled alive from the rubble at the site of a building that collapsed Wednesday in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, April 26, 2013. Crews bored deeper Friday into the wreckage of a garment-factory building that collapsed two days earlier, hoping for miracle rescues that would prevent the death toll from rising much higher, as angry relatives of the missing clashed with police.(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)

CBS Web Copy

An incredible story of survival in which a seamstress lived 17 days trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building in Bangladesh has left many asking one question: How?

Bangladesh rescue workers said Friday they freed the woman trapped in the ruins of a garment factory that collapsed April 24, a disaster in which more than 1,000 people were killed.

Before this woman, who has been identified as Reshma, the last survivor had been found April 28, the Associated Press reported.

"It's pretty impressive," Dr. Thomas Kirsch, an associate professor of emergency medicine and international health at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, told CBSNews.com of the survival. "Some people would call it a miracle."

Kirsch, who serves as co-director of the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response at Hopkins, has consulted on disaster-related health issues for the World Health Organization, UNICEF and the American Red Cross. He has responded to disasters ranging from superstorm Sandy to recent earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, Mexico and New Zealand.

"In the past, it's very unusual in regards to rescues to even go beyond a couple days," said Kirsch. "This is fairly unprecedented as far as survival goes."

What's especially unusual about her survival, he said, is that when you're trapped for an extended period, there's added risks from potential wound damage, inactivity and no access to food or water.

Food isn't as crucial, according to Kirsch, with some cases having been reported of people surviving 65 days without eating. Lack of water is what's most deadly, he said, and dehydration can lead a person to become delirious or lose consciousness, and kill someone trapped within a week. In Bangladesh the temperature has been especially hot, he pointed out.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, explained to CBSNews.com that even small amounts of water from condensation can be life-saving.

"There is the age old question of how long you can survive without access to food or water before dehydration and malnutrition will kill you," Glatter said in an email. "It depends on how healthy you are, any chronic medical problems, as well as how much fluid you are losing through sweat or evaporation."

Reshma apparently survived by eating dried food that was in the area where she was trapped, and by rationing bottles of water that were with her.

In addition to dehydration, other health risks present when trapped for an extended period of time.

Trapped individuals can start losing muscle mass very quickly and can become weakened -- muscle loss occurs within days in hospital intensive care units, Kirsch pointed out. If the individual was cut and bleeding, wound infections can occur quickly as well, which Kirsch saw often following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

There's also "crushed syndrome," he added, a condition in which a person is trapped and the pressure causes the muscles to release toxins. Those toxins, in turn, damage the kidneys and could lead to a delayed death.

Glatter explained that potentially dangerous crush injuries to the arms and legs are often caused by fallen masonry, beams and infrastructure in buildings. That first leads to muscle swelling, numbness and tingling of the trapped extremities, often progressing to crush syndrome.

He added that trapped limbs may also be at risk for "compartment syndrome" -- due to insufficient blood and oxygen -- and may need to be amputated upon rescue.

Being trapped can take a heavy psychological toll as well.

"The psychological implications of isolation coupled with crush syndrome and pain are often lethal in this setting," Glatter pointed out. "Survival often comes down to the determination to carry on, minute to minute. "

Reshma told a TV station from her hospital bed that she heard the voices of the rescuers in recent days, and she kept hitting debris with sticks and rods to get their attention but nobody heard her.

Once found, crews used handsaws and welding and drilling equipment to cut through the debris still trapping her. They gave her water, oxygen and saline as they worked to free her. After 40 minutes, she was freed and rushed to a military hospital where she was treated for dehydration, according to local media. Her rescuers said she was in shockingly good condition, and could even walk.

"She's lucky," Kirsch said of her survival. "It's all a matter of luck."

Online Public Information File

Viewers with disabilities can get assistance accessing this station's FCC Public Inspection File by contacting the station with the information listed below. Questions or concerns relating to the accessibility of the FCC's online public file system should be directed to the FCC at 888-225-5322, 888-835-5322 (TTY), or fccinfo@fcc.gov.